Alice Broke the Looking Glass
by Lillielle
Summary: Disclaimer: I own nothing. 50 drabbles/one-shots set in Alice: Madness Returns or Alice in Wonderland universe. Individual warnings will be marked in each chapter. Alice never gets a break, does she...
1. A Meeting With a Rabbit

_Prompt: Meeting the White Rabbit for the first time._

But at first, Alice thought she was imagining things. She had seen many rabbits frolicking in the fields that surrounded her familial home, of all shapes and colours. But she'd never seen one wearing a slightly tattered blue waistcoat. Or holding a pocket watch in one clumsy paw.

And she'd _certainly_ never heard a rabbit _talking_ to itself. But this one certainly was, mumbling "I'm late, I'm late!" with a distinctly lapine accent.

"Mr. Rabbit?" she asked, cautiously approaching the peculiarly fluffy creature. This close, she could see his whiskers vibrating in the slight breeze, and the twitch of his dusky pink nose. "Mr. Rabbit?"

But without even noticing her, he took off, his powerful hind legs spurting dirt back at her, and making her cough as dust smacked into her face.

"Wait!" Alice cried in dismay, running after the wretched thing. At first, she thought she'd never catch up but slowly, ever so slowly, she drew almost level with the stampeding creature, nearly close enough to snatch at his ears streaming in the wind.

She was so caught up in watching him, in fact, that she never even noticed when she fell down the rabbit hole until the sky closed up above her and she folded rather painfully over an immense tree root.

"Ow!" Alice gasped in pain, eyes watering. The fact that she was falling and falling, and had been falling for quite a while now, suddenly registered and she shrieked, the sound vanishing into the dim walls almost as soon as it had escaped her throat.

"Do be quiet, would you?" an upside-down man wearing a very fancy burgundy frock coat admonished sternly from a sideways painting. "It's terribly rude to yell at tea time."

"Sorry, sir," a dazed Alice managed to whisper. The man nodded, a disconcerting movement to watch upside down, and soon enough, the painting had vanished into the ether up above.

The rabbit was falling down ahead of her, nearly close enough for her shoe to brush. The ticking of his pocket watch was very loud in her ears.

Finally, they both collapsed on the ground in a rumpled heap, and her fingers closed around one small, white paw, giving the rabbit quite a start.

"Who are you?!" he demanded, his nose twitching more frantically than ever. "Let go of me! I've got to go, you see, I've got to meet the Queen!"

"The what?" Alice said in bewilderment, her skirts crumpled about her and her hair askew. "I'm Alice. Alice Liddell. Who are you?"

"Mr. White Rabbit at your service," he replied, making a semi-elegant bow. "And the Queen is the Queen! Terribly important, and I'm _late_, so would you mind letting go, yes, like that, thank you."

And he shot off into the darkness once more, leaving a very confused Alice behind.


	2. Sanity

They think I'm mad.

I didn't speak for two weeks after they pulled me from the smoking wreckage of my ancestral home, my hand still clutched tightly around my stuffed rabbit, my stockings scorched and my shoes missing.

"The Centaur did it," were my first words, and it confirmed all their suspicions, I suppose. They say it's a good thing I'm locked up in Rutledge. They say they can help me, with needle pricks and fat, squirming leeches and _talking_. I never talk back anymore. It's pointless. They don't understand me, and I refuse to understand them.

When he comes, I turn violent. My fingernails claw and scratch at his arms, drawing deep, bloodied furrows into the skin. I am told I look like a monster, my eyes blank and inhuman, teeth bared in a scarcely recognisable snarl. He only chuckles and pats me on the head (deftly avoiding my bite) and tells me he'll be back tomorrow.

_Monster!_ I mentally shriek at him as I collapse back onto the bed, panting and waiting for yet another orderly to come and restrain me. My wrists are perpetually chafed and bruised from the leather, but I don't care. Let them tie me down. They'll never restrain my mind.

In my mind, I live in Wonderland.

Oh, it's a dark Wonderland, to be sure. This Wonderland is twisted, dark. As dark as my poisoned memories, as the crash of the burning timbers, and the screams of my burning family. Rabbit shares no tea now, and he really should get that nervous twitch looked after before he loses his head. The Cat is, well, a cat. Damnable as always, and yet I dare say he likes me. But why shouldn't he? He's in my mind, isn't he?

Ah, yes, my mind. My mind is broken. I know it is, but I can't bring myself to care anymore. What does it matter? He always comes, broken or not. To laugh at me, although he denies it. His spectacles glitter in the sunlight, turning him into an enormous insect.

"Forget, Alice," he whispers in my ears as the sedative takes hold once more. "Forgetting is the key to everything."

_Fuck you,_ I say, but only in the sanctity of my own head, only in the desolate slumber of Wonderland.

_You murdered my family_ echoes through my room, but only I can hear it.


End file.
